A set of recently released polls found Americans largely at odds with the Trump administration and its defense of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent who fatally shot Minneapolis woman Renee Good.
A Quinnipiac University poll found 53% of registered voters saying the shooting of Good was not justified, 35% saying it was justified and 12% with no opinion. Over 9 in 10 Democrats and roughly 6 in 10 independents said the shooting was not justified, but over three-quarters of Republicans said it was.
Similarly, a CNN poll found a 56% majority of Americans saying the shooting was an inappropriate use of force, with just 26% saying it was appropriate. Another 18% said they hadn’t heard enough to say. About half (51%) said that the fatal shooting reflects bigger problems with the way ICE is operating.Â
An ICE agent identified as Jonathan Ross is seen moments after Renee Good was fatally shot in Minneapolis on Jan. 7, 2026.
The CNN poll also found 51% of Americans saying ICE enforcement actions were making cities less safe, with 31% saying they were making cities safer and 18% saying ICE was having little effect on safety.
There’s a partisan split here, with 82% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents saying ICE enforcement was making cities less safe and 67% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents saying it was making cities safer.
More Americans said in the CNN poll that they were concerned about crackdowns against those protesting deportations (47%) rather than the protests getting out of hand (37%).
And Americans voiced little trust in the federal government to carry out a fair and thorough investigation of the shooting in Minneapolis, according to the CNN poll, with 62% saying they had just some or no trust at all — including nearly half (47%) who said they had no trust at all. Just 17% said they trust the government “a great deal” to investigate the shooting.
In all, according to the Quinnipiac poll, 82% of U.S. voters have seen the video of Good being fatally shot by the ICE agent.